About the Stinky Dog and Her Two English Springer Spaniels
Juris Dogtor is the creative playground of a lawyerish* working dog handler. While much of this blog explores the myriad ways in which dogs and justice interact with one another, above all else Juris Dogtor serves as a refuge for other boundless souls whose sense of creativity will never fit neatly into a box. As an extension of myself, Juris Dogtor also features search dog training reflections, personal essays from the human end of the leash, symbolic studies (how else will I put my mythology degree to use?) resources concerning justice, pieces on creativity, sentimental writing, and more.
*Although I have a juris doctor (law) degree, and I'm about to graduate with my second law degree (a Master of Laws in environmental law from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa - William S. Richardson School of Law) I am not authorized to practice law and do not provide any legal advice, practice, or opinion.
Amira
The human end of the leash
Salve! As both a working dog handler and a legal scholar, my creative vision lies at the intersection of dogs and justice. Get to know me through my alternative Curriculum Vitae:
June 1998: As Scorpio ascends the Eastern horizon, identical twin girls are born in the Southern Adirondacks under a new moon in Cancer. This is the story of the younger (and infinitely cooler) twin.
Circa June 2008: Amira realizes that she's never been able to smell anything (congenital anosmia). Up until this point, she believed that stupidity was the reason she could not detect odor upon inhalation through her nose.
Also Circa June 2008: Amira misses her own birthday party because she's too busy with a camera up her nose (In true dad fashion, her father scheduled her first appointment with an ENT on the day of her birthday party.)
August 2016: After graduating from high school in New York, Amira started college at a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania. After facing a number of personal and academic challenges, she withdraws from college around midterms. She did not earn any credits.
January 2017: Amira attends community college in the Southern Adirondacks.
August 2017: Amira starts college again, this time at the University of Pittsburgh as a classics major with the express intention of applying to Pitt's Accelerated Law Admissions Program. Shortly after arriving at Pitt, Amira runs into another student with a black lab puppy wearing a service dog vest behind the Cathedral of Learning (Cathy). They strike up conversation and Amira offers to help the student with starting up a service dog training/future service dog puppy raising club at Pitt.
November 2017: Amira brings home her first service dog in training through the club, a yellow lab puppy that Amira names Luna.
December 2017: After facing a number of health and academic challenges, Amira almost drops out of Pitt. She decides to take the spring semester off from school and service dog training to focus on her health and making a comeback.
May 2018: After a semester off from school, Amira enrolls in a full-time course load for the upcoming summer semester with hopes of "catching up." She had to negotiate with the financial aid office, who eventually agreed to apply her unused spring aid towards the summer semester. At this point, when Amira is going into what's technically her third year of college, she's only completed just under 1.5 years worth of college credits.
Also May 2018: Amira gets Luna back to train for the summer while Luna's new raiser is studying abroad. Having returned to service dog training and college at the same time after a rough start, the pressure is on.
August 2018: Amira receives a 3.9 GPA for the summer semester, and Luna progresses beyond expectation while in Amira's care that summer. Hot off this success, Amira decides that she's going to catch up to the 3+3 program at Pitt. She enrolls in a maximum-credit load for the fall 2018 semester, and
October 2018: Amira brings home her second service dog in training, another yellow lab named Lilo.
Summer 2019: As the president of the service dog club at Pitt, Amira had been receiving numerous complaints from other students raisers and sitters. Amira club to start up the current iteration of service puppy raising at Pitt: STEP at Pitt.
December 2019: Amira completes her undergraduate studies after being accepted into law school one year early out of undergrad (the Accelerated Law Admissions Program at the University of Pittsburgh).
May 2021: Amira receives her B.A. in classics from the University of Pittsburgh (with a specialization in mythology). Unbeknownst to Amira, her 1L grades were factored into her undergraduate GPA.
May 2023: Amira graduates from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law with her juris doctor degree.
August 2024: Amira moves to Oʻahu and starts a master of laws in environmental law at the University of Hawaiʻi - William S. Richardson School of Law.
Penguin
Amira's disaster human remains dog
Penguin is a black and white field line English Springer Spaniel in training for disaster human remains search and rescue in Hawaiʻi. Named in honor of the greatest hockey team to ever grace the ice, the Pittsburgh Penguins, Penguin was born on the island of Kauaʻi to a FEMA (disaster) human remains dog. Penguin's father is a trailing/live find SAR K9 in North Carolina. Penguin will usually work for food, but he is obsessed with ball.
Pierogi
Amira's unemployed dog
Pierogi (Unemployed Dog)
Pierogi is my handsome unemployed dog who still gets to tag along to everything that Penguin and I do. Pierogi is a liver and white bench line English Springer Spaniel, born in May 2022 in the Southern Adirondack region of New York. In his free time-which is all his time considering he's unemployed-Pierogi enjoys being little spoon, chomping at flies, forgetting he's a Springer and indicating to me that he's ready for me to pick him up, and swimming.